Much lower susceptibility to repairs and a significatly longer service life - our robot-supported fault diagnosis, Hydraulic Diagnostics (HyDiag), helps to improve the overall maintenance process of actuators. Develpoed together with the Polytechnic University of Turin, with HyDiag we are laying the groundwork for the component MRO of the future.
The faulty actuators are mounted on the test stand and connected mechanically, electrically and hydraulically. The test stand runs through all the operating states of the actuator and records its behavior. During the 12-minute test (the manual procedure takes about an hour), around 13 GB of data is collected and recorded. When there are several such checks over the course of the component's life cycle, a detailed digital "résumé" with information on the operating behavior, repair frequency and service life is created. These results enable us to a more targeted maintenance.
Our repair specialists developed this integrated Industry 4.0 environment in-house; special tools were produced at the company's Additive Manufacturing (AM) Center in Hamburg. Through this automated work process, actuators can be tested faster and more precise diagnoses are produced. The number of maintenance events owing to defects and outages will be significantly reduced – a quantum leap in component MRO. And the reliability of the actuators will increase, too: Their time-on-wing is expected to more than double.
Currently the system is being used for all primary fly by wire flight control actuators in the Airbus A320 family of aircraft. Owing to its excellent performance, in the future the HyDiag approach will be used for the actuators in all modern aircraft types. And there's more: The insights gained through this project can be transferred over the medium and long term to other testing and repair tasks.
Tool and Testequipment Technology
Lufthansa Technik AG | Hamburg, Germany